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The problem in majority of the cases is related to the wrong DNS loading. The problem itself very often happens when you are behind several routers (like one from internet connection vendor and one your WiFi router) and until you don’t flush your current DNS configuration you can try anything but you won’t be successful.
What’s really funny that’s so easy – just run the command prompt with admin rights, then run the following command:

ipconfig /flushdns

make a coffee and get back to the WU heaven 🙂
All other applications are able to deal with that – WU not. From my point of view this is a bug and I am just surprised it’s nowhere documented.

Recently, I had problems with connection to the Windows 2008R2 server. I could ping it but I cannot connect to it using RDP. I’ve checked many obvoius remote settings but overlooked another – someone changed remote desktop default port in the registry. I wasted a huge amount of time to find it.
Anyway, the simplest way to checked if RDP is listening on default port is to use netstat command and to change the default port for RDP – run regedit and go to this key:

You can easily find the HP product number of any of your HP server by looking on the server itself or on the warranty card. The HP product number is nice to have if you want to easily find that date your HP server will be out of warranty. This product number is no longer mandatory if you are using warranty check tool, but in some case you will still need it.
If your HP server was built using HP SmartStart (or the newer HP Intelligent Provisioning) the product number could be found in the windows registry:

I was having this issue trying to install the full version of .NET v4.0 on Windows 2008R2. No matter what I tried: changing compatibility modes, running as administrator – I’ve got “The setup cannot run in compatibility mode” error. I received the message whether I tried to install OR uninstall it (Using add/remove programs).

Here is how you could resolve this issue:
1. Download the full installer (dotNetFx40_Full_x86_x64.exe) from here Microsoft site.
2. Extract it into a new folder using WinRAR or 7-Zip, for example “c:\downloads\dotNetFx40_Full_x86_x64\”.
3. Once extracted, you need to edit 3 files, all “ParameterInfo.xml”. Following from the example folder in step two, the three files are located:

Remove these these 5 lines from each file to disable the compatibility mode check. Remember to save.

4. Once that is done, open a DOS prompt in Administrator Mode and run the setup utility located in the “dotNetFx40_Full_x86_x64” folder created above. You need to tell it what architecture you’re on. If you’re running 32-bit Windows, use:

setup /x86

If you’re using 64-bit windows, use:

setup /x64

It should bring up the installer and continue normally without receiving the compatibility mode error. I suspect other installers suffering from this error might be able to be modified in a similar way.

Have you noticed that you cannot add the desktop icons (Computer, Network, etc.) to your Windows Server 2008 R2 desktop? Am I the only one who is annoyed by this? If not, here’s how to get them back.

First, you’ll have to go into Server Manager and access the Features section. In Features, you will select to add a feature and then select the Desktop Experience feature. Once added, you will have to reboot the server. That’s right! A reboot is required to add icons to your desktop.

Now this is really insane. Think about it. You can add your own icons for shortcuts on the desktop, but to get Computer and Network, you have to add the entire Desktop Experience feature. What a ridiculous decision Microsoft made here.

Now that I’ve expressed my suffering, we shall move on.

Once you’ve rebooted the server, simply right-click on the Desktop and select Personalize. From here, you can add the desktop icons you desire as usual.

In Windows Server 2003 you could have multiple Remote Desktop session with the same user. In Windows Server 2008 this is not possible by default. If you login with the same user account the first session will be taken over by second session.

There are several (at least 4 methods to change this), here are two of them: Method 1.
Allow multiple Remote Desktop sessions per user by changing a registry key.
1. Click Start, then Run and type regedit.
2. Check out the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\TerminalServer

3. If the fSingleSessionPerUser value doesn’t exist, create a new DWORD value named fSingleSessionPerUser.
4. Open the fSingleSessionPerUser value. The possible values for this setting are as follows:
– 0x0 Allow multiple sessions per user
– 0x1 Force each user to a single session

Method 2.
1. Click Start, then Run and type tsconfig.msc.
2. You should untick the Restrict each user to a single session option.